The invention relates to a device for making use of breakdowns detected and stored by the central unit of one or more aircraft computers.
During the flight of an aircraft, each of the computers of the aircraft exercises surveillance of its own operation, and possibly that of the others, in such a way as to rapidly detect any breakdown and to confine the effects thereof, in particular to avoid the sending of incorrect orders. Similarly, the various members of the aircraft are monitored in such a way as to rapidly detect any anomaly, to be able to signal it, and to possibly remedy it. The context of a breakdown is stored in memory, if the computer is still capable of so doing, in such a way that a later, detailed analysis allows the broken-down element to be localized or the software defect applicable to the context to be found. So as to render the system more reliable and to remove the ambiguities which can arise from breakdowns due to the computer and not to the components of the aircraft, at least two computers discharging the same function are installed.
During ground maintenance operations, the breakdown information, stored at the site of each computer in a non-volatile memory, are visually displayed in such a way as to analyze the context and determine the element of this computer or the component having created the breakdown, as well as the probable reason for the breakdown. This use of the information may be performed by using a centralized polling system integrated into the aircraft, which, by means of a menu, allows the maintenance technician to view successively the content of memory areas relating to the various breakdowns detected. This method is, however, fairly slow, since it is necessary to choose successively, by means of the menu, the whole of the memory areas of a computer, which can take 20 minutes, then examine the following computer. Moreover, the presentation of the information is fairly mediocre since the output interface of the computer in question is an interface with a very basic communications protocol which can only control a fairly rudimentary printer, a thermal printer for example, with a number of columns limited to 16 for example. It is necessary to carry out the same process for the other computers, and great lengths of paper rolls are turned out, which are very difficult to handle, and on which the same information is not always in the same order if the various pages of the menu have not been called according to the same sequence. Moreover, as the information output is done solely visually, on paper or possibly on a screen, this prohibits any use other than manual which might use a maintenance computer able to automatically process the data coming from the various computers.
Obviously it might be desirable to transfer the data arriving at the printer to a maintenance computer situated in a computing center, but such a transfer, over several hundreds of meters, would require the addition of interfaces adapted to the transfer at such a range and supplied by the power supply for the computers of the aircraft, which would increase its size and its weight.
Similarly, it is also possible to remove the computers and to put them on a test bench in order to test their various modules, but this change of place modifies the operating conditions of the computer, such as the temperature, and may mask breakdowns appearing only in marginal environmental conditions.